Professional Photoshop 6: The Classic Guide to Color Correction

Plenty of books cover all things Photoshop, but Professional Photoshop 6: The Classic Guide to Color Correction is probably one of the few that ought to be required reading. Filled with clear text and color images, this new edition of the classic color usage guide stands out among its peers. Updated to reflect changes in Photoshop since the previous edition, nearly half the material is either new or has been rewritten. Color correction itself hasn't changed, but the way it's done and the need for doing it certainly have.

The book contains 17 chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of correction and image reproduction: colorspaces, resolution, luminosity, separation, channels, and much more. Each chapter is worthy of study, and all are interesting. While not a step-by-step tutorial guide, the text is written so that the driving idea behind each technique--in addition to a demonstration of it--is explained, allowing the reader to apply what is learned to his or her own work.

For the first time, this book includes a CD-ROM. While not exactly overflowing with content, it does include images from the book that anxiously await color correction, as well as some chapters that were in earlier editions of the book but are not present in this one. There is also an important chapter on moving from a pre-version 5 Photoshop to version 6 (a significant jump).

The book doesn't try to be a Photoshop all-inclusive encyclopedia. Instead, it focuses on one aspect of the tool. Fortunately, since color correction is probably the most important, complex, and misunderstood area of digital imaging, Professional Photoshop 6: The Classic Guide to Color Correction excels at explaining and exploring the process behind the curtain, and the right and wrong way to adjust the color of images. --Mike Caputo